Albertsons’ new ‘micro sitcom’ is a big deal for retail media
Retail media content is becoming more complex, with major brands making big investments in videos made specifically to reach shoppers on screens in grocery stores or while shopping on an app.
In June, Albertsons Media Collective launched its first episodic, scripted branded-entertainment campaign in partnership with Procter & Gamble. It came in the form of “Rico’s Tacos,” a “micro drama” series of 22 episodes under three minutes each that, over the course of the series, follows a multigenerational Southern California family as they build a taco business at a taco stand outside of an Albertsons store near Venice Beach in California.
The series was built for retail media audiences watching from screens in stores, on the Albertsons e-commerce platform or on social media. It was inspired by shopper insights from Albertsons and Procter & Gamble and was produced by Minivela, which specializes in short-form content for U.S. Hispanic audiences. Minivela has produced similar content for clients such as Verizon and Warner Bros. Pictures.
Several retail media executives told Modern Retail that the series represents confidence from major brands like Procter & Gamble in retail media as a distribution channel for custom content.
“Retail media is growing up and commanding the space it occupies,” said Brian Monahan, svp of retail media at Albertsons Media Collective. “It’s a demonstration that, in retail media, [using] this canvas that we’ve got, with customer data, targeting, measurement and reach, we can do more than item-and-price advertising. And you can start to do more of this full-funnel [marketing] that brings people to the category to begin with.”
Marlow Nickell, founder and CEO of retail media platform Grocery TV, said that while many brands are beginning to lean into in-store retail media, many are still in experimental phases, repurposing content built for other channels such as programmatic video, digital out-of-home or connected TV.
“For the brands that really build custom creatives, we see significantly better results,” Nickell said. “That [Albertsons is] starting to work with really big brands like P&G with custom creative like this is great, because it just shows you what’s coming and that [in-store media] is going to be a category with staying power.” He added that some brands are even beginning to create content geared at specific areas of the store. Grocery TV found that shoppers are 2.5 times more likely to consider a brand when the creative fits the surrounding environment and the products they’re shopping near.
Monahan said the campaign began with a meeting with Procter & Gamble in its hometown of Cincinnati. The goal was to create an upper-funnel campaign that would bring more consumers into certain categories and focus on a specific growth market, which ended up being the Hispanic audience.
“We looked at some of our trip types [and asked]: Why do these consumers go into the grocery store, and how might we speak to them in context?” Monahan said. For example, he said Albertsons has found that 8% of its trips are driven by someone preparing a meal and forgetting an ingredient, so one episode focuses on someone who ran out of avocados and had to run to the grocery store.
Monahan said the campaign was internally called “soap opera 2.0,” as it was meant to be the next evolution of the soap opera. Procter & Gamble, which makes soaps, detergents and other household products, has long sponsored daytime dramas — hence the name “soap opera.” “How would you imagine the soap opera today? It wouldn’t be linear television, daytime TV; you would do short-form vertical videos, creator-style, humorous,” Monahan said. “You would run on social; you would, in our case, run it all the way into the stores.”
Albertsons has been running two episodes every Tuesday since June. Monahan said the company doesn’t yet have resulting sales numbers it can share publicly, but that the company has made some interesting findings about how shoppers consume video in stores. “We put these videos up with QR codes, not even knowing if people in busy grocery stores shopping with their shopping cart would stop and pull out their phone,” Monahan said. “Well, turns out they are, and they’re scanning the QR code.” The QR codes link to the video portal on the Albertsons site.
The series is running in all Albertsons stores with screens built out to date. Monahan said the company aims to have screens in about 1,000 stores by the end of this year. “We’re hanging glass and pulling wire in dozens of stores every week,” Monahan said, though he declined to share the current number of stores with screens installed.
Albertsons said the company eventually plans to launch similar campaigns spanning more series, formats and brand collaborations. However, he said P&G was the one to bring in the production company and that Albertsons leans on the brands themselves for the storytelling and production. “What we offer is the platform, the data, the insights and the reach distribution,” Monahan said. “We’re not out here saying everyone needs to do micro dramas in retail media — only if it’s appropriate.”
Monahan said this campaign mirrors the creativity of shopper marketing that has existed in grocery stores for years, such as for summer grilling season or the Fourth of July — but it hasn’t been seen in the context of retail media placements sold to advertisers. But now, as retail media begins to touch large networks of in-store screens, radio and checkout machines, the line between shopper marketing and retail media is beginning to blur. Retailers have reorganized their businesses to reflect this convergence of the two business models.
“The creative that you see in stores is really impactful, custom and smart, and I don’t think that has always been the case with retail media, which is mostly like: item, price, available at retailer X,” Monahan said. “The creativity tha has been present in the shopper marketing industry is bleeding into retail media.”
Janine Flaccavento, svp of retail media for the Americas at Criteo, said in an email that retailers have been looking more at opportunities to influence consideration before purchase intent is fully formed, and that brands are increasingly looking into how richer content can complement their retail media strategies. Retail media, she said, also presents the opportunity for brands to see whether content resonated and how it influences purchases.
“Retail media is becoming much more than an advertising channel,” Flaccavento said. “It’s evolving into a connected shopping experience where content, media and commerce work together. The future isn’t simply more content. It’s content that is connected to commerce, giving brands the ability to inspire shoppers while understanding exactly how that engagement influences business results.”
Other retailers and e-commerce platforms have also been investing in new ways to engage with retail media audiences. In June, Instacart introduced a short-form video feed showcasing meals and recipes. The same month, Walmart said it has agreed to acquire Vibe.co, a self-service connected TV advertising platform for small and mid-sized businesses and mid-market brands.
“You’re just seeing retailers bring more to the table for full-funnel marketing,” Monahan said. “That’s how you drive growth: Reach the right consumer with the right message at the right time. It’s not always bottom-of-the-funnel at shelf; the industry trends I see that I’m excited about are that next generation of what the industry can offer and how smart marketers like P&G are putting it to work.”